#tw: sacrifice

[overlord-of-fantasy]

Day 7: Temples & sacrifice

In Numenor Mairon is still mourning his husband. His clothes are inspired by Melkors and he only sacrifices the most beatiful of the faithfull. Mairon wears a black chain vail and doesn´t allow anyone else to speak Melkors name. He shapeshifted to be skinnyer and less intimidating and changed his hair as a sign of mournig.

[k-kizkhalifa]

sorry baby the vessel mask stays on during sex or else i’ll actually use the knife i’m holding and sacrifice you to sleep myself.

[ramonag-if]

…was MC supposed to be a human sacrifice or something?

No 😂 While animal/human sacrifice did occur in ancient religions and still happen for current ones - depending where you are in the world (animal sacrifice of course, the other type would be murder 👀), I'm not including that as part of the religions in-game.

The MC was never meant to die but Salyra had thought things would have turned out much more differently than what actually happened (such as the game events).

[lcgerdemain]

Origins: The Shadow Fiend

"Are you sure this is a good idea? Messing with Voodoo magic stuff really likely won't fix my issue, Nia..." Daniel murmurs sitting sickly within his college apartment, hugging a blanket around his shoulders as he was freezing and shivering. It'd come back after several years of being sick free. His throat felt dry no matter the amount of liquid he drank, his Lungs ached with every breath he took. Daniel should've just ignored his eccentric roommate. When he gets like this, it's only a uphill battle to stay alive, a lethal attempt without high end medical aid in a hospital. He would watch his swahili friend mixing herbs in her mortar and pestle, eyeing it's increasingly goopy texture nervously. "Don't you worry Daniel, I called my father for help. You have somethin' real bad inside you. But once that friend of his gets here from New Orleans, we should be able to help you get through life freer." She reassures him. Though she didn't know much on this man, her father swore by him, trained under him as well. Nia fully understood as well that this may be his last chance of getting help from this sickness.

Daniel coughed, hacking and shaking as he did, feeling frail and wheezing as he felt his ribcage ache as well now from the coughing. his dulled blue eyes with pinkish film over them dragged themselves up to look to Nia. "I should really be going to a hospital instead of waiting for the inevitable..." sweat beaded on his forehead causing his pale white hair to stick to it. "He'll be here any minute, you'll see Danny, we can make you better than ever before." She would reply with her back still turned to him. He would look down at his phone beside him, it was vibrating and showing the name "Uncle Al" on the screen. Then it would end again to show four missed calls and a variety of texts from the same number and a few related numbers. If he waited too much longer they might come bust the door down to the apartment to check in on him. All the way from New York even. Another wrenching cough came to his lips and he covered his mouth again. His thoughts lingered towards the concept of death. The thing he'd been running from for so long. How he could name a few people who wouldn't mind seeing him just stop breathing. Give up. He'd come way too far... fought for every heartbeat and breath he could take each day to get to where he was... he wouldn't give up.

He refused to.

Nia would turn back to him with a wood bowl that she'd poured what he'd deemed to be something along the lines of what some women would use for "facials". "Drink up. It will clear your lungs and throat." She said bringing it forward. Daniel shivered. He could recall many a time when he'd been told to take something with a variety of colors between each substance. Yet, something so... vomit colored he would consider to be among the odder things he'd been made to consume. "If this kills me because you put something in it... I'll haunt you." He grumbles lowly before shakily taking it and knocking it back the best he could, trying to press his tongue down against his bottom jaw to prevent tasting too much of it. It tasted about as well as it looked. Bitter, sour, minty, slightly sweet, spicy, he almost felt like someone stuffed a handful of evergreen bristles into his mouth. His stomach liked it even less. It churned and bubbled, threatening to send it right back up on him. 'No, no keep it down...' Daniel thought willing himself to suppress the urge to heave. After several minutes, it did subside, and some of the ache and horrible tightness did ease some within him. "See? You should do better to listen to me. I know what I'm doing." She beamed at him, while Daniel return her remark with a bit of a glare. He hated her bubbly personality, She was so certain of herself, of the idea she could change the world, change his rather pessimistic views on it all, admirable sure.... but unrealistic. He'd been through too much to believe her now.

Augustin walked with a grin, his hat's brim just covering his gaze as he strode down the street heading towards the complex address his dear acolyte had give him. Such a giving little being to offer up someone else as tribute for more power. A giggle passed through his lips. If the little human was as dilapidated as explained, then it should be simple to take his soul... His acolyte didn't seem to mind the idea of the girl who asked for help being up for grabs either. He pondered this colder northern city. So full and bustling. Yet the soul to it was much different from the warmer southern cities he was used to. His cane clicked the concrete as he pressed forward with each step and each swing of that cane. He could already sense the sickness... third floor... second window over. His green slitted eyes looked up towards it in thought. Best to keep appearances for now and simply take the stairs. Coming to the entrance of the complex, he would reach up one black gloved hand and press the buzzer for apartment 3H. Over the comes his deep thick accented voice would reach Nia who answered from the other end. "Bonjou cheri, I've come to see the ti gason malad~" With a moment's pause, a ring would sound and the door would click unlocked. His grin grew just a little bit wider at the invitation.

Mr. Theriot took only an hour or two of what sounded like conversing with Nia in their native tongue for things to be "set up." Ruined a perfected good living room set up really is all that Daniel felt about it. This was starting to feel more and more like some kinda satanic cult type stuff and his lungs only felt worse in the time it took for them to finish. "This doesn't look safe." He'd comment, being brushed off by Nia for one with her shrug and bouncy hop following after the man as she had been like an absolute golden retriever the entire time. She was too trusting, perhaps too sheltered he felt. "Thank you so much for helping Monsieur Theriot. I admit, I wasn't too sure about this since I don't know my father very well. But you've been so cordial in this matter." Ah, and there it is. Daniel's scowl drew longer. From the first day he'd met her he knew there had to be something, she was entirely too trusting and bubbly and everything to have a really good home life. Sometimes people just are genuinely upbeat people. But other times... you just get this feeling that it isn't real. He hadn't felt it'd been genuine the entire time he'd known her. "Of course cher, now, lets get him on this table here 'n we can begin getting move bagay yo outta him." Mr Theriot replied. That was another thing he didn't like. Not a hello, not a single word in his direction, Nia had spoken his name several times... yet he made no acknowledgment of him as a person. Daniel would press his back further into the seat wincing in pain somewhat as he was still no better than before... He understood he was dying, constantly in fact. Doctors all over New York advising his parents that he wasn't worth the treatment all the time. To just... let go. But he kept fighting back because he wanted to live. Finish college, get a job, live a life he wanted to live. Death will take a back seat no matter how hard it tried to tear him down.

However even he had his limits on what he'd do to combat his sickness.

Augustin would come for him, move to take Daniel by the arm and lift him, only to find him stiff and glaring. "Is there something wrong?" He would ask lightly. "Now you decide it's worth talking to me?" The boy before him growled. Seems he's a little more stubborn than he appeared. "You didn't seem to want to speak, I wouldn't push things I didn't think would be worth the venture." He would reply simply, offering again to help him up, the response of Daniel yanking his arm back proving amusing for the moment to him. "Danny, what's wrong? He's only trying to help." Nia would intervene with a huff, that sweet demeanor of hers, that sweet ignorant demeanor. "You're investing too much trust in someone you don't know." He replied lowly, having about had it with the manners and cordial behavior and seemingly unprovoked helpfulness or at least minimally provoked help. He'd never met a man that was willing to just do something from the bottom of his heart.

While this was all going on, Augustin's patience was beginning to wear thin. The moon's light was almost in the perfect position to reflect onto the circle he'd drawn onto the floor of this disgusting living space of theirs. While thoroughly amused someone here seemed even a little bit tuned into the situation, more so than the level of attentiveness he normally gave most northerners, he couldn't remain amused for long. "Look child, I didn't come up here to simply back out now." He would tell him calmly, finally clasping a hand around his wrist once he caught the nimble thin thing and began to pull him up. But he felt like he was dragging up a very young alligator up from it's freshly made nest with how the boy thrashed in his grip, hissing and demanding his freedom. It didn't matter really the level of defiance this one had. He wanted this soul, these souls. and he was by far the simpler one he could obtain it from he figured. So frail, just the right sort of jostling and he was coughing all over again. It was all too easy too to convince this little lady that he was there to help, to invoke greater powers to help the boy.

It was at this point Nia began to question what was going on. Why was Mr. Theriot getting agitated about his hesitancy. Daniel all the time seemed to be the cause of fights or heated arguments, though after she managed to get him talking, who could blame him? He'd never had anyone talk to, even with the people that did genuinely care. Not to mention here at college he didn't have any of them to fall back on anyway. She'd resolved to be his friend, to help him no matter how angry or verbally rude he got. It was like a scared cornered cat in her school apartment. You just had to give him time. However, he'd never seen him react this violently to someone else like this. Verbal was one thing, but at this moment he was all but clawing at the other's hand on him, panic in his eyes as he was brought to their dinner table that'd been shoved to the center of the living area. She moved to come forward, to intervene, but fear stole over her as Mr. Theriot's eyes darted up to her, as if in warning for her to stay. Those were not the kind eyes she'd looked into before. "Wait, aren't we helping Daniel...?" She'd ask, still trying to steel herself enough to step towards them as the man now nearly through the frailer one onto the table. "Helping is but one word for it, cher." He would reply, snapping his hand back as he'd mistakenly allowed his grip to loosen for just a moment and within it, Daniel wrenching his hand up and biting down ferociously onto it.

In his moment of freedom Daniel attempted to roll off the table and scramble away. Nothing about this was ok. It infuriated him that only now was Nia actually speaking out, that realized something was off. For all her good will and bright personality how stupid could this girl be in "Helping him"? A cackle erupted from the other man as he swung with his other hand and gripped Daniel's shoulder, shoving him back down onto the table flat on his back. His lungs felt squeeze from the rush, a hard cough erupting from him again as he tried to shove the bigger man off, kicking and flailing under his weight. "Now now, there's no need to fight." Mr.Theriot would say as the visage of a reasonable man fell away, with pointed ears and equally pointed teeth. this sharp eyed man was no human to be sure. "Get off me! Get the fuck off!" Daniel wailed kicking again, noting the hand he bit being raised, drops of darker color blood dripping down onto the floor making the circle glow in equal measure to the moonlight that enveloped it. The shadows around the room seemingly growing darker, eyes upon them now as they closed in. Nia, fearful to being touched by one now stepped within the glowing circle. "Reye kalm ti trete mwen an... They hurt much more when you fight." Mr. Theriot replied, holding him firmly in his grasp as a blade was drawn from a pocket within his vest. A bejeweled dagger that eerily felt as dark as the shadows enclosing around them.

Daniel watched in horror as the dagger was raised above him, the man speaking some kind of gibberish that he couldn't understand but it made those shadows dance and begin intruding into the circle, it's light being encompassed by the dark. Giggles and hyena like laughter being heard now around them. "No, No I don't want to die! Stop!" He shrieked giving another hard kick trying to thrash out of his grip. Nia looked to them only now realizing how much she'd messed up in allowing this to happen. This was no ritual to help Daniel. This would kill him! Rushing forward she cried out grabbing onto the man's other arm as it came down, dragging it away from it's intended mark of Daniel's heart, but thrust it forward too far and sliced right through Daniel's neck. "No, no!" She gasped, watching Daniel's eyes go wide and mouth agape in a silent scream, neither able to process what had happened. "Tsk, tsk, if you had just let me do what was intended cher... this wouldn't have been so messy and painful." Mr. Theriot would say, watching now as the opening allowed the shadows to surge forward and inward, Nia scrambling back in horror to the sight. So much darkness digging into him, curling around him like some writhing hungry beast with it's caught prey. "W-What have we done? What have I done?" Nia murmured shaking. This has gone so horribly wrong. She asked for help, why would her father send someone here to hurt him? "It will be the same thing you will find yourself in as soon as I take the soul from the remains. Se jis bisnis li apre tout." He chuckled watching the sight unfold.... But as it went, he noticed something... something wrong about this. This he'd done so many times now, the spirits he calls would devour the shadow first, as they had done here, then the body to leave the soul. It was happening... he could see the glints of the soul peeking through as they went, but in a manner of speaking, they couldn't seem to unravel again from it.

Everything went black, from the moment he felt that slice across his throat the darkness rolling over his sight as he tried to process what occurred. It felt like something wriggled and squeezed around his numbing form, like a snake curled around him and eating at him bit by bit. Is this how it would happen? Is this really how he was going to go? After all the pain and misery and beatings and belittlement... After fighting and screaming and thrashing for every minute of life he could afford? Daniel felt cold, So very cold, and his consciousness lingered on that as he considered it. Letting go. Letting whatever was done to him drag him down finally so he could just sleep. Giggling little voices swirled around him, egging him on. For what? It was obvious he was dead. The voices echoed, "dead, yes dead very dead, hehehe~" His soul quivered within him... or what remained of him. This was terrifying. He can't be dead. Daniel didn't want to die yet. The darkness suddenly felt tense around his form... was it still there? He couldn't tell anymore. It didn't matter. He didn't want to die yet. He refused to die yet. He fought too long and too hard to just sit there and DIE. His lungs didn't hurt anymore but he could feel as if he were taking a deep breath and forced out the loudest angriest scream he'd ever let loose, feeling beginning to return to him vaguely, the ability to move. The voices changed, merged as they squealed but couldn't escape him. They ate him, he knew it now. So he would EAT THEM. They became his voice, echoing in unison with him as he wailed, jerking and writhing on the table. All that darkness, it finally began to clear and give him vision again, the drowning feeling he had from it receding as he grasped at it and dragged it inward with a crazed thought of amusement. Laughter he could hear erupting from his throat as he found the ability to sit up and look to the other two presences beside him. "You tricked us." Daniel's voice growled out, echoing with the shadows that still were dissolving against his reforming body, glowing red eyes staring dead at Mr. Theriot. He grinned at the shocked expression on his face.

Nia stared in horror at this scene. This was her fault. She killed her friend. Her sickly, depressed, pessimistic friend who just needed someone he could genuinely trust. Now look at him. A mass of darkness had all but eaten him up, with the intention of leaving nothing behind. Then it became even worse. The mass squirmed, and shifted, fluctuating as if thrashing upon the table before the visage of the man she knew lurched up against the darkness, letting out a twisted, echoing, maddened scream that sounded nothing of her friend from before. "Bon Gras, kisa ou ban mwen? What is this man?" Mr. Theriot hissed out having come and grabbed her up by her wrist, wrenching her up to force her gaze to him, Nia unable to respond before the sickening echoed voice of Daniel came through to both of them, his body could almost be picked out now within the mass of shadows that slowly seemed to be compressing against him, no... withdrawing would be the better concept. Something unholy occurred within this apartment. Something against that of very creation. Nia felt sick to her stomach watching this monster swing his legs off the table and begin to stand, the lights of the apartment flickering around them as the table cracked while his hands left it.

…… Three Years later….

Daniel Thalis has since been declared dead. But his body had disappeared from the morgue, the mortician speaking madly stating he woke up with all his blood drained and walked out, disappearing… like a shadow.

[in-love-with-writing-whump]

Febuwhump 26: Forced to Choose

Whumpee held their sword in hand, hand shaking as they watched Whumper's hand tighten around D's throat.

"It’s your choice, Whumpee. You can stand by Villain and watch your friends die, starting with your friend here. Or you can surrender, and I'll let them live."

Whumpee stood there, clenching their jaw. They hated Villain just as much as Whumper did, but without them, they would never go home, never see their family again. Their friends would never get to truly live the lives they wanted.

They looked from friend to friend. C struggled to stop A's bleeding, B was too weak to fight, and D would die before they could do anything about it. Caretaker was strong, but that fight could never be won.

If Villain died, the consequences would kill everyone.

Blood dripped to the ground.

Whumpee dropped their sword in the ground. Caretaker swore. Whumper smiled as Whumpee met their gaze.

"I get to say goodbye first. And no matter what, you don't kill any of them."

Whumper dropped D, smiling sadly. "Good choice, Whumpee."

FEBUWHUMP 2023 IS HERE!

the prompts this year were chosen through a suggestion poll and subsequent vote, where over 350 people voted for their favourites. the top 28 make up the core prompts, and a mixture of the next most popular and this blog’s personal favourites have become the alternatives!

i’m so excited to see what you all create with these prompts, and hope they’re inspiring enough to trigger a whole month’s worth of creativity for you! if you have any questions, make sure to check out the blog’s FAQ, or check out the previously asked questions on the blog before sending one of your own!

please note: this year, notifying the blog of completionist status will happen through a google form that will be released closer to the end of febuwhump.

full write-up of prompts and rules under the cut:

Keep reading

[pidgydraws]

🩸 And Nothing Else Matters 🩸

part 2 - part 3

[bamsara]

i have so many dream/nightmare related comic scenes I havent posted. anyway hold this real quick

[tsuutarr]

The hero didn’t really think much of you when he first saw you. After all, you're just a pretty little saint that grew up with praise inside the gleaming walls of a church, never knowing any suffering. He doubts you’ll be able to keep up with him during his journey to save the world.

All of his initial disdain for you disappears when he begins his journey with you. You’re funny, you’re kind, you’re generous. Your healing ability from the gods isn’t the only thing that seems to heal him – just your presence, just your laugh, just you. You make life – his journey – a little more bearable.

So how – how could they? You’re his light, you’re his everything, and yet… They want to sacrifice you? That’s why you were chosen to be his partner for his trip? And you’re just standing there, unwilling to fight your fate.

“I’m okay with disappearing,” you murmur, wiping his tears away with hands that are turning to stone. “If I can save your life with my own, then I’m satisfied.”

But he’s not. He’s not satisfied, not when you’re not by his side. When he sees you turn to stone, your skin replaced with beautiful white marble, he vows to do anything to bring you back to his side. 

Using the power of the gods, he turns back time again and again and again so he can save you – so he can be with you.

But you meet the same fate over and over and over again. Again and again and again.

…Then who cares? Who cares about this shitty world when it’s without you?

The next time you return to consciousness, the world is in disarray, covered in murky fog and the smell of blood. The next thing you know, you’re being pulled into a warm embrace.

“You’re alive…” the hero says, hugging you close. His warmth is suffocating. “Yes… I should’ve done this from the start instead of turning back time…”

“W… what’s happening?” you ask, heart feeling too heavy, like stone, in your chest. “What did you do…?”

“Nothing, everything, anything.” He nuzzles your neck, savoring your warmth. It sends chills down your spine. “Anything to have you by my side. Even if it means destroying the world.”

[signourneybooks]

Midnight Kingdom | Book 2 of The Dark Gods | ARC Review

Thank you to Hodder & Stoughton and Netgalley for the review copy in exchange for an honest review. This does not change my opinion in anyway. Book: The Midnight Kingdom (The Dark Gods 2) by Tara SimRelease Date: August 22nd 2023Tags: Fantasy | High Fantasy | Dark Fantasy | Gods | Trigger/Content Warnings: Violence | Murder | Torture | Eye Removal | Sacrifice Other books in this series I…

[the-star-rigel]

pjo/hoo/toa + the cycle

The Lightning Thief / Growing Sideways, Noah Kahan / Ivan the Terrible and His Son Ivan, Ilya Repin + Saturn Devouring His Son, Goya + Saturn, Rubens / The Blood of Olympus / The Family Jewels, MARINA / The Last Olympian / The Sea of Monsters / The Family Jewels / Orestes Pursued by the Furies, Bouguereau / The Hidden Oracle / Apollo and Marsyas, Manfredi / In The Blood, John Mayer / The Sea of Monsters / The Combat of Ares and Athena, Jacques Louis David / The Family Jewels / Mark of Athena / The Combat of Ares and Athena / The Lightning Thief / Family Line, Conan Gray / Cronos and Rhea, Schinkel / The Lightning Thief / The Blood of Olympus / In The Blood / The Last Olympian / Chronos and His Child, Romanelli / Desireé Dellagiacomo / The Lightning Thief / Family Line / The Fallen Angel, Alexandre Cabanel + The Last Day of Pompeii, Bryullov / The Blood of Olympus / The Outcast, Botticelli / Glass, Irony and God, Anna Carson / House of Hades / Family Line / The Last Olympian / The Lament for Icarus, Herbert Draper + Sacrifice of Iphigenia, Roman School + Minerva and Arachne, Houasse + Venus Induces Helen to Fall in Love with Paris, Kauffmann / The Last Olympian / Hadestown / The Lightning Thief / apple, Charli xcx / The Last Olympian / I Would Leave Me If I Could, Halsey / The Sea of Monsters / ? / LET YOUR DAD DIE ENERGY DRINK, Lavery and Corrigan / The Last Olympian / Eat Your Young, Hozier / The Last Olympian / Orpheus and the Bacchantes, Lazzarini / The Blood of Olympus / Susan Smith, wych elm / Orpheus and the Bacchantes / The Burning Maze / ? / The Tyrant’s Tomb / Perseus Freeing Andromeda, Veronese / Abduction of Psyche, Bouguereau + Bacchus and Ariadne, Van Loo / The Tower of Nero / The Tower of Nero / The Tower of Nero

[lotussart]

Sacred

[peterpettigrewproject]

Make it [make sense] Monday

Welcome to a new week, love’s! 

This one’s a little chunky. But it’s an important Peter moment:

TW: violence, mutilation, self mutilation, amputation, sacrifice

Oof, how do you feel? What a chapter, truly. He really did that.

As usual, a reminder on what Make it [make sense] Monday is below the line.

We’re taking things that are true, and exploring them from Peter's point of view.

Each Monday we have a different section of dialogue from the books to use as a prompt for our Take the Tag initiative. 

Use the prompt however you would like. You can create something with it, just discuss it, tell it from Peter’s perspective, or even just… make it make sense. 

Examples of the kinds of works we’re hoping to inspire with these prompts:

- A character study (any creative format): this can be as short as a poem or even just a head canon based on the prompt.

- A drabble: Pretty standard to see 100-500 words for a drabble, but there is technically no maximum WC.

- A dialogue (ie. The kind of short posts you usually see on Tumblr)

- Comic, art, mood board or a video edit.

- Playlist

Don’t forget to tag Peter Pettigrew, Peter Pettigrew Project and Make it Make Sense Monday.

[im-totally-not-an-alien-2]

"Why?"

That one word sent a shock through Danny's system, like he was back in the portal being electrocuted all over again. Still, he knew what was at stake, so even though that look on Tim's face made him want to fall to his knees and explain everything, he knew he couldn't.

Instead, he raised his gun as the portals filling the sky multipled and merged together as the ghost zone tried to absorb their reality. Channeling his inner Dan, he gave Tim a mocking smirk, What? You didn't think all that was real, did you?"

"You...you're lying!"

Danny tilted his head at an angle he knew would look as smug and condescending as possible, and judging by the burst of rage he felt coming from Nightwing a few rooftops over, it worked. "Tim, you know better." He said in Bruce's voice, It was the exact thing Bruce had told them when they were starting thier relationship.

Everyone had disapproved when he had brought his new boyfriend home a few months after meeting at the skatepark. Bruce hated Danny from the get-go, more suspicious of him than he had been with any of the batkids' previous partners.

Danny opened his mouth to mock him more but was quickly cut off by a punch to the face, not by Nightwing, or by Robin, who was still racing towards him at seemingly Mach speeds. Nope. It was Hood, who looked madder than Danny had ever seen him, surprising both Tim and Danny alike.

"You did all of this just to steal our souls and trap us in some weird afterlife dimension as your slaves?!"

Danny had no idea where the slaves thing came from, but it sounds villainous, so Danny's gonna go with it, "Of course!"

[ozzgin]

content: gender neutral reader, noncon!, gore!, mutilation!, captivity

Yandere!Artist is not quite an artist by profession. His skill of trade can be immediately guessed in the way he so masterfully handles a scalpel. He hacks, and cleaves, and stitches right back up.

He's saved many souls, and his competency as a surgeon has never been doubted. One could say he's had a lot of practice with the less fortunate...patients.

It started with anatomical drawings; idly tracing over his used textbooks, untangling the thick vessels connecting the liver tissue. This can't be all, he thought at the time. It looked bland, it looked fake. He needed a different kind of muse.

Oh, he's gained a lot of experience since. It took many bodies to perfect his artistry, but now he can finally return home, sit back, and admire his work adorning every wall.

Then he found you.

A different kind of fascination enthralled his soul. He wanted to learn all there is to you, know you better than anyone else. Special little thing, too innocent and naïve for this world. Worry not, you could never be in better hands than his.

"Oh, it's an ugly one."

Your lips are curved into a pout, soft sobs spilling out of your mouth in hiccups. Through tears, you can discern what's left of your leg. Right above the knee, the flesh is torn, sliced choppily and exposing the bone, with clusters of fat glistening among the pooled blood.

He glances at the axe that tarnished your skin.

"You left me with no choice. How many times must I explain myself to you?"

He tucks a few hair strands behind your ear.

"Do you truly believe that the world out there is any better than here? I'm saying this out of love and concern. If you wished to have a walk, or go somewhere, I would've accompanied you.

If you're going to be sneaky, I have no choice but to discipline you."

You nod, in a daze, ears ringing from the shock. Upon reflection, it might have been a poor idea to try and escape. All the way to your hip, there's a prickly numbness, a wet warmth. You stare at his slender hands as he tucks a thin strip of cloth into your gash.

Before reaching for his surgery kit, he eyes the scenery once more: the steady streams of blood branching across the tile, the femoral artery gushing and spasming against the improvised bandage. Your face is pale, and your gaze hollow. He must confess, you're particularly beautiful in this moment, resting against the wall, your damp lashes reminding him of a Madonna painting.

"Perhaps...might you give me a moment?"

He quickly hops on his stool, and twirls a brush between his fingers.

"Don't worry, I'll be quick. Just the sketch, I promise."

He gently dabs the canvas, observing you in raw adoration. Every detail must be considered. Every stroke must be calculated.

"Afterwards, I'll patch your precious leg back. You'll be as good as new in a few days.

And hopefully wiser, if you want to avoid it in the future. I can't do miracles. This will leave an ugly scar."

Lesson learned. Your nose wrinkles with a sniff, yet you obediently straighten your back.

"Is this alright," you ask meekly, referring to your rather poor attempt at posing.

"Perfect."

[phantomrose96]

Sham Sacrifice: Chapter 2

(Sham Sacrifice: Chapter 1)

Chapter 2, because @ciestess voiced an idea that absolutely consumed my entire mind and I could not rest until I made this

...

Danny’s eyes tracked the swing of gunfire raining bullets across the horizon. Tucker reloaded, crouched, dodged left and pivoted, another blast of bullet confetti launched through a gaggle of zombie heads. He tossed the magazine and reloaded. Click. Ching. Danny flinched when a zombie smashed a hammer clean through Tucker’s head.

 “God. Fucking…” Tucker pulled out of his hunch. He unclamped his fingers from his controller like bug legs unfurling. He extended the controller to Danny, bouncing it in his grip. “Your turn.”

“Huh?” Danny asked, as if he hadn’t been watching Tucker’s game the whole time.

“You. You’re up. I died.”

Danny accepted the controller, reloaded the screen, and jogged about a hundred feet forward before the first horde of zombies took him out football-style from the left. The death screen rolled.

“Oops,” Danny said.

“Not your best work.” And Tucker took the controller back. Tucker shot a few spare glances to Danny while the level restart loaded in. “Is it Vlad?”

“No. Well, yes,” Danny answered, flopping back into his normal position on the Foley attic armchair. Tucker’s mom had planned to toss it ages ago, before it became Danny’s chair. “But at least he left when my parents went all zombie mode into the basement.” Danny picked absently at the scabs of leather flaking from the armrest. “It was just weird.”

“I don’t mean this as an insult, but it’s definitely not the first time your dad’s gotten some math wrong,” Tucker said. “He blows up like three things a week doesn’t he?”

“He does. But he doesn’t care when he gets that math wrong. This one was like I broke something important.” Danny’s expression soured, and he picked a leather flake clean off the chair. “Vlad did, I mean.”

“Does any of the math actually work?” Sam offered from Tucker’s desk. She leaned an elbow around the back of his chair, head tilted to Danny. A pencil dangled from her loose fingers, nib-half worn to the History of an Invention report she was actually working on. Tucker had half-assed his earlier in the day about the palm pilot. Danny had not done his. “Like, it’s all crackpot theory, right? Do ghosts even follow math?”

“I think they follow some math. It’s not magic that makes the ecto-bazookas work, or the Fenton-phones work, or—well the thermos DIDN’T work—until I made it work.”

The unspoken thing Danny had been not-quite-saying hung in the air. He said it this time.

“So I’m wondering if I did it. Like the Fenton thermos. And now maybe they’re gonna do the math all over and realize the missing piece of the equation is one half-ghost son.”

“Well the order is backwards, for starters,” Sam said. “Thermos worked because you pumped ghost-energy into it. How would you have done that to the portal? You were human when you walked in.”

“Sam’s right. What do you think you brought to the table exactly? Button-slapping abilities?” Tucker loaded up the next level. “It was their portal, and their math, and it worked. There’s a million-billion kinds of math and they probably just forgot one thing.”

Tucker took a headshot and died. Mechanically, he handed the controller back to Danny.

“Yeah, probably.”

“Ask Vlad. He’s got a portal.”

“Like Vlad’s gonna tell me.”

“Just promise to be his diligent little son minion or whatever. He’s easy. Wait, let me do the next level. You know I like the cyberpunk levels.”

“It’s not your turn,” Danny said, reeling the controller just out of Tucker’s wiggling grasp.

“I’ll let you do two in a row for your next turn.”

Danny knocked Tucker away, distracted just long enough for a zombie cyberbeam to launch from the horizon and take him out through the head.

The screen washed sepia. Danny stared at it. You died.

…

Danny hadn’t really meant to stay the night at Tucker’s place. They’d just gotten really far in Man vs. Zombie, and Sam had gone home, and Danny was just resting his eyes between his turns with the controller.

So when he woke to the bright strip of sunlight beaming into his eyes through the attic skylight, his first thought was Fuck.

He was awake, here, morning, school. Fuck he had not actually done his History of Invention report, despite the stupid amount of grief it had already caused him this weekend. He pulled his face out of the armrest, now pineapple-patterned from the decaying leather, and pawed for his phone fallen on the floor. If it was still early enough, he could maybe still afford to desperately half-ass something before sixth period science.

He flipped his phone open. A text from Jazz. “Don’t come home. Make up an excuse.”

“…Fuck,” Danny whispered, through the sensation of his heart launching itself into his throat.

He scrambled upright, whole body shaking at the mercy of adrenaline shock so soon after being pulled from dead sleep. His mouth was dry, teeth unbrushed, wearing his old clothes from yesterday, report not done, Don’t come home, Don’t come home, Don’t come home.

They knew. He’d fucked it up. Somehow they knew. The math. Something. And it had to be with guns blazing, because Jazz would not send that text if they’d taken the “We accept you” angle.

Were they coming for him? On their way here? Tracking by his phone? Did they like Mrs. Foley enough to not SWAT-slam her against the wall when she opened the door for them so they could come capture the ghost pretending to be their son?

Fuck.

Danny was upright. Danny was standing. Danny was shaking. Danny wasn’t actually sure what the next thing was he was supposed to do.

Tucker’s ball of blankets rustled from the couch. “Mmph?” he asked, articulately.

“I have to. Go deal with my parents, I think,” Danny said, because any plan felt a little better than no plan. “I think they know.”  

Danny was a ghost. Danny was gone. Tucker sat upright, alone, blinking himself awake. He was staring at the You Died sepia screen still displayed on monitor, now burnt into the plasma of the tv.

…

Danny paused with his human hand slick on the Fenton front door. The gears in his mind turned as his plan quickly unraveled into no-plan. He had no plan, right? What was his plan? Handle this Man vs Zombie style—open the front door ready to dodge wide, because both zombies and parents liked to camp behind closed doors with bazookas at the ready?

“—absolutely absurd, and entirely unscientific, with no probability of being true. It goes against everything we know about neurology.”

Oh, Jazz. Was Jazz enough of a bazooka-deterrent? Probably not. Knowing his parents.

Danny turned the knob. His heart hammered. If bazookas, dodge left.

The first thing he noticed was in fact the no-bazookas. It was what he was most looking for. And so it was Jazz’s expression he did not notice until second—whites of her eyes wide, snapped to Danny, with a look that would be accusatory if worry hadn’t won that battle. Her cheeks were pale. Her hair was unbrushed.

He noticed his parents third. Compulsively, he rocked back onto his right foot, still outside the doorway, still outside the threshold of the Fenton family household.

Seeing his parents tired was of absolutely no shock-value to Danny. It was at least a twice-per-month tradition to see them haul themselves up from the basement sweaty and glaze-eyed at 7am, babbling excitement about some new ecto-spectral-hoozy-whatsits whose concept had shimmed into their minds at 8pm and now existed, fully operational, 11 nonstop hours later.

So it wasn’t the exhaustion on their face. It wasn’t the stagnant smell of sweat or the paleness of their faces or the stains on their clothes.

It was the way they looked at him. Like their whole world had fallen apart with his foot passing over the doorstep.

“Danny,” Jazz said, choked, a break in the silence. “Things are…! A little weird here. So maybe, if you wanna just get to school, I’ll finish clearing up—there’s a misunderstanding Mom and Dad have with their math. I am state finalist in Math League and have been studying college-level calculus in preparation for school applications so I’ve offered to help them fix their math, or prove to them—”

“Danny,” Maddie said, an echo of Jazz, but it felt worse. Danny scanned her hands for anything pointed enough to be a weapon. They were empty. “Danny can I just ask you something honestly, just quickly? Jazz is right. I’m just trying to clear up an issue with our math. And I won’t be mad. Whatever the answer is, I won’t be mad. I just want an honest answer.”

She stepped closer. Danny fought the urge to match her with a step backwards. Her eyes roved over him in a starved way, looking for something.

“Were you there when the portal turned on?” she asked.

“No, I wasn’t,” Danny answered. He wasn’t sure what to do with his face to make it look convincing. “It just. It needed some time to boot up, or something, right? That’s what you two said.”

“That was our guess ,but we don’t really know. The security tapes are wiped. We tried to make them EMF-resilient but a very, very strong blast of EMF could still corrupt them.”

“Yeah. I mean the portal’s gonna do that, right? When it turned on? Ripping open the Ghost Zone that’s—gotta be huge EMF.” Danny’s focus bounced between his mother’s eyes. “Just a guess. I really don’t know. I was in bed, already, whenever the portal started working.”

Left eye. Right eye. Why was she looking at him like that? Like she was sad. Was this part a trick? Make Danny let his guard down, go hey Mom need a hug? and that’s when the bazooka-whipping starts? It made his ribs feel scratchy. Stop looking at me like that.

“Have you felt anything weird at all, since the portal started working? Any gaps in your memory? Any parts of you that don’t feel right? Is there any part of you that feels like it’s changed in a way you can’t explain?”

She reached a hand out. Danny instinctively recoiled.

“Uh, yeah. They taught us about this in health class. They call it ‘puberty’ there.”

“Danny,” Jack said, and his voice was scratchy from disuse, from a long and uncharacteristic amount of time spent not speaking. “Did you die in the machine?”

A beat. A moment. Like when the zombie sends a hammer through your head.

“I’M alive!” Danny declared with a crack in his voice, with hands slammed to his chest. “Look at me. What are you talking about?”

“It’s the only math that works,” Jack continued, his words like chalk, his voice too dead. He looked too much at Danny. “If one of you two walked into the portal, and died in it. And I don’t think it was Jazz.”

This was bad. This was weird. Danny had ghost powers, sure. ‘They can’t kill me I’m already dead,’ was a funny joke sometimes. But it was funny as a joke. He was a ghost sham, really. A faker, a LARPer, whatever Tucker had called it. He was a human who was just kind of a freak now. More of a freak than he already was. He looked dead, for someone who was super-duper still alive.

He’d buried that worry, already. They weren’t allowed to bring it back.

“Look… at me!” Danny continued, mouth dry. He threw his arms wide. “Look how super alive I am! I’m awake! Using energy! Eating food and sleeping with my human body. I’ve got flesh and blood and bones and stuff! I’m not a ghost-expert but ghosts don’t have that.”

This was weird. This made Danny feel like something was scratching to get free from inside his rib cage. It twisted his entrails. Sure Tucker and Sam had thought he was dead, for those first horrible few minutes, but then he changed back to a human and the nightmare ended there. Jazz never called him dead. The ghosts called him freak and halfa and whelp, but never ��one of them.’ That was his whole thing: being different from the ghosts who became ghosts by something so normal as dying.

He was not dead.

“If you died in the portal, your ghost wouldn’t have been ripped out of your body. It would have been allowed to stay, and then you’d be…” Jack hesitated. “I don’t know what you’d be, but you wouldn’t be alive.”

“Dad,” Jazz said, and she stood herself bodily between Danny and Jack. “What an absolutely messed up out-of-line thing to say to your son! You don’t know that! Dad you’re tired, and just because you weren’t able to solve your math problem in one night doesn’t mean you get to treat Danny like this! I said I’d help you with your math! Now apologize to Danny.”

Jazz looked over her shoulder to Danny, her expression falling at the sight of Danny’s face.

Danny backed up over the door threshold. He shook his head. “I’m not comfortable with this. This is weird. I’m gonna go to school now.”

“Danny, I promise they’re just—”

Danny turned on heel. No backpack, no change of clothes. He took to the street without a single school supply and moved, and moved.

It was supposed to be guns-blazing. Molecule by molecule. Headshot you died. He’d prepared for that this whole time, in the shower, in his dreams, in his daydreams in class. He’d duck and dodge and explain himself over and over until they understood him.

Danny wasn’t sure he was capable of explaining himself anymore.

…

Danny knocked the heavy iron knocker. He was in ghost form, as a threat. He wondered if he still smelled like yesterday’s sweat now that he wasn’t wearing yesterday’s clothes. Now he was wearing the clothes he died in.

No one answered the door. Danny phased himself in.

“Vlad!” he called, and his words echoed along the slope of the two elaborate winding staircases that twirled and met at the top like caduceus. Gold-plated banisters. A security camera buried somewhere in the ceiling, no doubt.

Danny phased into the library. His eyes roved the three stories of bookshelves wrapping the perimeter like a sheath. Gaudy. Audacious. Like Vlad would ever read that much. Danny racked his brain because some something in here was the secret to opening Vlad’s laboratory. Jazz had told him. Some gold something to be touched, and pressed down, or pushed up? Or it opened to a button. Or a keypad, maybe.

Danny spat a curse. He was being stupid. He was frazzled. He wasn’t thinking straight.

He dove into the floor below. Intangibility was the only key he needed.

The sheetrock was cold, even when he wasn’t touching it. The darkness was so piercing it made static jump in his vision, some weird trick of the brain Jazz had explained where, in the absence of all light, the brain hallucinates its own. It came with a sensation of pressure against his eyeballs, and a complete disorientation of direction, and he simply just kept going down.

Danny emerged into a wash of cold air. Cold like metal was cold. The low lights of dials and clicking machines were bright to his eyes previously dunked into the pitchest nothing. He drank it in, eyes grateful for light no matter how little, inner ear grateful for orientation that had left his head swimming and his stomach tight.

His feet tapped down to the stone ground, and the air that breezed past him was chilled.

“Vlad!” Danny called again.

Nothing.

He moved by the floor lighting, which ran in trim along the perimeter of the laboratory rooms. It lit things from beneath, made machines gaunt and specimens into sharp geometries of darkness and flesh. It made the Fenton lab feel warm in a way Danny had never considered it warm.

His feet clacked. His breath puffed.

“Vlad!”

He followed light, followed a wash of green miasma percolating from some far room and catching on the particulate of water and dust that disturbed with the air currents. Danny disturbed it too, walking through, wearing its shade of green which his shadow robbed from the wall behind him.

“Vlad. I swear to god Vlad.”

He crossed the threshold of the portal room, where the dusting of green ambience became a medallion wash of golden-green coating, painting every surface of the room. The Fenton lab was one single expansive room, portal anchored into the far wall and facing all the dead and empty air in front of it. This was different. A much smaller room, walled on all sides save for the simple doorway, and each surface reflected the color back deeper and heavier. It was like a fishtank in the wall of an aquarium lit radiant aqua-blue by all the lights within, but green instead, pure ecto-green.

Danny approached the open portal. He stared into its placid swirls, mesmerized, and scared of it, in a way he hadn’t previously felt about the portal in the Fenton basement.

“Ah, seems the cat is a good mouser after all, it dragged you in my boy.” The words came sing-song. They came spine-shivering for Danny, who felt them like hot breath on his shoulder and reeled back, pivoted, fire crackling to life in his palms.

Vlad stood at the doorway, a solid 20 steps from Danny.

“Vlad.”

“So I’ve been hearing.”

“I need you to explain the portal.”

“Ah, I see you’ve spoken to your parents.” Vlad stepped in, washed in the ecto-green which muddied his ruby red eyes. He held his hands behind his back, cape trailing, a smirk on his fanged face. “Last I heard they weren’t taking the news very well.”

“What news. What did you tell them?”

“Me? Nothing. In fact, very kindly for your sake I even tried to drive them away from the answer but… We know how stubborn your parents can be.”

“What answer?”

“That you’re dead, Daniel.”

Shock washed like ice down Danny’s spine. It sent prickles like spider legs across his skin.

“Well, I suppose there’s still chance for some doubt. It could be Jazz. She could take the fall for you, if there’s any benefit to that at all.”

“I’m a halfa. We are halfas,” Danny said.

“A silly made up word by a silly child,” Vlad mused, and the light smile left his lips. “We are dead.”

“I’m not dead,” and Danny’s words were small, and they were childish.

“You are. I am. Embrace it. It’s nicer this way.” Vlad took a few steps closer, lionously tall in his saunter, feet clacking the ground. “It’s very freeing. After you’ve died already what is there left to fear?”

“I’m alive.”

“You’re a dead body with its soul still stuffed inside it like a Christmas goose. A lot of things in your body don’t work anymore, but ghosts don’t work right anyway and it is, for all its defiance of nature, a perfectly symbiotic relationship.” Vlad’s smile brushed his lips again, warm. “It’s nice to share this with you. Isn’t it nice to share things with people?”

Danny’s heart was beating too fast in his chest, and it was a human heart, a human beat. “I’m not dead,” he declared.

“Your wounds heal quickly because the ghost piloting you only needs to remember form. It stacks cells back into place and calls it good. You’ll endure fatal injuries as you no doubt have many times in your fights, but they’re trivial because physical trauma is not what kills a ghost. It’s what creates one. You’ll necrotize in places but it’s okay, because you’ll carry on, and it will bother you only if you let it bother you, if you’re too sentimental about the puppet you’re still inside.” Vlad closed in closer, neck craning to appraise Danny. “Ghosts love a facsimile of life so you will keep your heart pumping, your lungs breathing. You’ll eat and you’ll sleep but you’ll find you won’t perish if you don’t. It just won’t be a good time if you want to keep occupying your flesh form. Take better care of it. You won’t get another.”

“You’re psychotic. And you’re wrong.”

“I have all the math to prove it.” Vlad leered from over Danny’s shoulder. He circled the boy, knocking Danny’s balance, who still on a hair trigger stood ready to fight. The light from the ghost portal painted Vlad’s face like the phases of the moon as he moved. “Did your parents explain that part to you properly?”

“No, because they didn’t get the math right.”

“Oh they’ve gotten it right. This time. It only took them two decades longer than it took me.” The portal rolled like static, and its fizzling pattern crashed like an ocean wave across Vlad’s cape. “No amount of man-made power is sufficient to drag the entire fabric of the Ghost Zone up against our own, tear a hole through it, and anchor it to a stable frame. It requires something with a pull on the Ghost Zone, a strong pull, and that thing is a human life at the moment of an extraordinarily violent death.”

Danny backed a step away from the portal, from Vlad, but the walls boxed him in. He swam in its green light.

“You stepped in and you turned the portal on, that’s what you thought, right, Daniel? Pressed a careless button on the inside and now here we are. Silly parents for not finding that button first.” Vlad’s face hardened. “No. Jack and Maddie knew about the button. Maddie explained it to me over the phone. What engineer designing and building their own portal would forget the location of the on button? They’d pressed it from the outside. It didn’t work. And so you pressing the button was not the important part. It was you dying to the electrocution that clicked everything right into place. And while your ghost should have been torn from your lifeless corpse and pulled to the Ghost Zone you instead pulled the Ghost Zone here. Your ghost got to stay put. You opened the portal. You became the undead freak you are. And now we’re here.”

Danny’s eyes bounced between Vlad’s. His cheeks felt hot, like he was enduring an accusation of wrongdoing. And he had none of the knowledge to refute what was being said.

“You’re messing with me. You’re wrong,” Danny shot back. He thrust an arm out, drenched in the fog of the portal. “If the portal needs a person to die in it then explain your portal! Are you so casual about it? You killed someone? You’re admitting to murder and you think I won’t do anything about it?”

Anger flashed like a storm across Vlad’s face. His aura swelled, pressing down with a pressure on Danny as Vlad halted and cast his shadow clear across Danny, coating the back wall. “The killing of other people with the wanton carelessness of half-baked machines is the domain of Jack and Jack alone. I’ve brought no such harm onto anyone else.”

“Then how do you have this portal?”

“This portal? This portal that I’ve had for 20 years? Which I opened when I solved the piece of Jack’s broken math that he was never able to solve until this morning?” Vlad stalked closer, hunched, imposing. Danny stepped back. “My boy Daniel you’ve had it so easy. You had it so simple. A truly clean break. So clean so lucky. A single lethal dose of electricity and it was already over. I’m jealous. You never even suffered.”

Vlad stepped closer, striking distance, arm extended. Danny flinched, but Vlad only swept his cape around, clenched in his fist, and pivoted to approach the portal.

“Put out of your misery before it even started.” Vlad slammed his fist against the portal rim, and the explosive metallic clang bounced through the rooms. His laugh belted out. “I should have been so lucky.”

19. Vlad Masters was 19. A sophomore in college. A man actively in the midst of sabotaging his social life to chase a woman who was already deeply in love with Vlad’s best friend who he hated more every day. He wasn’t sure what he ever enjoyed about Jack’s bumbling ineptitude, or his loudness, his brashness, his poor social skills, his bad breath, his mullet. Maybe Vlad had gravitated to Jack because deep down he loved how superior it made him feel to surround himself with the likes of Jack Fenton… And now, he hated how enraged it made him to watch Maddie’s eyes skip past his to focus on Jack Fucking Fenton again and again and again and again.

But surely there was hope still. Surely it was a matter of time before the rose-tinted glasses fell away and Maddie saw bumbling and inept and every such word in the basket when she looked at Jack. There’d come the day she tested the waters with Vlad to complain about one of Jack’s little quirks, and they’d find solace together in all the things Vlad was that Jack wasn’t, and all the things Vlad had that Jack didn’t. And he’d be gone, back to bumble elsewhere, and it would be just them.

The day didn’t come. It wouldn’t come. And maybe Vlad needed to change himself for Maddie. If he listened to her and Jack’s ghost ramblings, if he could put Jack in his place and solve the things Maddie couldn’t, it would show her. She’d understand.

Because that was the thing about Jack. His math was never right. Enduring Calculus 1 with Jack was all it took to prove this to Vlad. How many times he’d caught a single error on a single line for Jack, like a dropped stitch that would unravel the whole sweater. Every problem, without exception. Jack only passed on his homework grade with Vlad’s help. On his tests, he failed.

So Vlad was staring at Jack’s equation, full of bogus math, which Vlad knew was wrong because Jack had penned it, and Vlad had not yet fixed it himself.

“I’m telling you Jack, it won’t work.”

“Bogus V-man it totally will!”

It wouldn’t. But Vlad wouldn’t fix it for him. Not yet. Vlad would let Jack embarrass himself first, fully in front of Maddie, watching on, judging. Vlad would solve it for her. After. Once Jack had made a fool of himself for the hundredth time since college began.

He leaned in to study the portal frame. The gears were turning in his head already. He didn’t hear the whir of the power source catch.

…

19. Vlad Masters was 19. A tube ran down his nose and into his lungs, supplying oxygen for lungs which were failed by a diaphragm sloughing itself away. He was poisoned from the outside-in. Irradiated by ecto-energy none of the nurses or doctors could fully understand. It damaged his DNA. First obvious in the skin of his face where the blisters of his ecto-acne drained and sloughed. “Acne” was the wrong word. An unkind word. They were boils where the blast had cooked his skin, microwaved his cells. The skin on his body blackened over time. Organs decayed. Vlad Master read a lot about radiation sickness. He knew everything he had to expect.

Jack and Maddie had stopped visiting. They were dating now. It was on their last visit they’d told him, and Vlad hadn’t taken it well, and he’d perhaps burned a few bridges with the words he chose. It was deserved. Considering what Jack did to him.

He’d found the error in Jack’s math, by the way. Errors, but all the rest paled in impact compared to the lambda. The ecto-energy. The necessary ecto-potential to pull the Ghost Zone here. How stupid. How idiotic. For Vlad to die to a machine so botched in its construction.

When Vlad was released from the hospital, it was not because they’d cured him. It had been because there is a certain cruelty in making a 19-year-old live the last of his days bedded down in a white-walled room with just his books, his equations, and no one coming to visit anymore.

He was released with bedrest instructions. Vlad did not heed them. In his beater car, every cell of his body aching, he drove. At the materials lab, he disconnected his oxygen tank and moved through the lab space with the tube dangling loose from his nostril. No one was Vlad Masters’ friend. No one cared to stare long at his ugly boil-ridden face. No one stopped him as he hauled sheet metal, and supports, and bolts and wiring and resistors and power tools, checked out with a valid student ID, from the lab. The lab inventory room would not be seeing these back.

It was a prep bunker, buried beneath a vast lot of empty Wisconsin land, that Vlad hauled his materials. He and Jack had discovered it as freshmen. Poked through its bowels with flashlights and quipped and laughed over how eerie it was. Deep beneath the sheetrock, boxy rooms carved out of walls of stone. Shelf upon shelf of dusty canned foods, and shotguns sealed in cases fastened to the walls. The locks had rusted with water damage.

His arms ached until they throbbed, dragging beams of metal across the stone floor, scratching chalk-mark stains into the ground. His skin sloughed, inflamed, burning to the touch. Vlad didn’t bother to rest, because these injuries would never heal anyway. He hauled, and welded, and wired up his circuitry and resistors with a care and caution Jack would never have bothered to practice. He checked it against his math by flashlight. He took naps on the cold stone floor and woke with deep purple bruises on every part of his body that had pressed against the ground.

His appetite left him. His lungs filled with mucus. The boils on his face had spread down to his chest, his shoulders. The touch of his shirt chafed them, so he worked without one, a figure of skeletal rib ridges jutting from tight skin that bloomed with the projection of his shadow against stone walls.

He knew why Jack’s math was wrong.

A silly mistake. A stupid mistake. Anyone with half a mind for the paranormal should have realized the Ghost Zone was not so easily at your beck and call. Not without chumming the water with something it would rise to feast on.

And in that violent death, what would happen to the ghost? It would stay, wouldn’t it? If it successfully anchored the Ghost Zone to the portal it stood inside, then by definition the ghost would stay?

And was that death? Yes, in a way. But it was a death one would get to keep living. As opposed to the death Vlad was headed for, whose coldness and finality scared Vlad more than anything he could put to words.

He’d fixed the oxygen tank back to himself. He couldn’t work without it, hauling it about on a little dolly with him, back and forth, while he fetched and affixed the last of the plating he needed to craft the frame of his silent soulless portal.

He’d stolen a generator from the sports storage shed. It was meant to be enough to power the portable stadium lights they hauled onto the fields for late games, an absolute obelisk meant to cast light across an entire football field.

Surely, it contained enough power to kill one simple human.

Vlad fixed the last bolt in place. Jumper cables clamped generator to portal wiring. It was a pure skeleton. A paltry thing, like the bones of something already picked clean. Built in haste, sloppy, by a 19-year-old whose fingers were too inflamed to clutch a wrench any longer.

He could have asked Jack for help. Maddie. But he wouldn’t let them have this. They had to solve the portal on their own. They didn’t get to know his hard work. They did not get to save him.

Vlad would save himself.

A ghost anchored to a body. What was that? What monster was that?

Vlad moved. He coughed mucus from his lungs. It made it hard to breathe. So he moved slowly, and crouched, bony jutting angles, painted blotchy purple, all bruises and skin, sloughing away.

He crouched, because the portal he’d constructed was not large enough to hold him standing up. He bowed inside it, a small thing, a pathetic man of little life. He wheezed. He hurt. His eyes burned.

And he held in his hands the remote to flip the generator switch, and connect the circuit, and bring to life the math Vlad had so kindly corrected out from under Jack’s grip.

Vlad did not. Because throwing the switch would kill him.

Deep in his animal brain, his dying brain, he knew this intimately. It filled him with a drowning fear like paralysis. He did not want to die.

He would die if he did nothing.

It would be this one throwing of the switch which could save him. Which would burst the portal to life right through his heart. Electrocute it out of its rhythm, slaughter him like a pig on spot and… maybe… hopefully… drag the Ghost Zone here. And whatever he was, dead, would stay.

And whatever he was, dead, would be better than this.

Vlad held the remote in his clammy hands.

And from within the humming skeleton of his portal, his fingers caressed the on button.

…

The portal sung its happy contentment, mused in its healthy green aura, staining all the slabs of rock wall. Danny swiveled his head, recognizing now the bunker this had been before it had been a laboratory.

“I’ve harmed no one, Daniel,” Vlad concluded, his voice too measured for the horrors it had spilled forth. Too calm against the blossoming terror its words had wrought across Danny’s face. “I opened the portal to save myself. You’re lucky, Daniel. It was because of my fast thinking that your father is not a murderer. I took that honor from him.” Vlad’s head tilted to the side, suddenly sympathetic. “Although, you’ve maybe made the title whole for him.”

Vlad reached out, Danny shot away.

“Dad didn’t kill me,” he choked. “I did this to myself.”

“How lucky Jack is, to always dodge responsibility for his actions.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Of course you don’t. If you believed me, you’d have to accept you’re not wriggling out of this. There’s no denial you can bring home to your parents. If you believe me, then this is reality.” Vlad smiled, a playful glint to his fangs. “I suppose I should have more sympathy. I quite like being this way. It is so much nicer than wasting away to death, like I was. But you. You were healthy before this. This killed you, and it didn’t save you from anything.” Vlad cocked his head. “Such tragic fates, both of us, due to the carelessness of Jack Fenton.”

Danny shook his head. His heart beat—his human heart beat—all too fast in his throat. It made him sick. It made him feel like the walls were closing in around him. This was Vlad’s doing. Vlad’s trap. Vlad’s prison he’d been forced to join.

"That's not true. I'm not like you."

“Of course not,” Vlad said, sweetly. “How sweet denial is. Deny it if you like. Call me a liar. But if you ever want to come to terms with what your father did to you, consider coming to me. I understand you in a way no one else will.”

Danny gave no response. He gave no acknowledgement of Vlad’s words. He took to the air, phased himself up through the sheetrock that had been packed atop the doomsday prepper bunker. Up through the mansion, which had been built atop the portal beneath it, and not the other way around. Into the open sky, he breathed fresh air not stagnant and damp beneath the ground, bathed in light pure white from the sun and not tainted green like the bowels underneath him.

And he flew back toward the portal that made him, leaving Vlad with the portal from which he’d made himself.

...

(inspiration post from @ciestess)

[one-time-i-dreamt]

Someone was trying to ritually sacrifice me and I had to keep finding ways to escape and get out of it. I succeeded when I baked some of the best tasting bread in the world and ate it with the person trying to kill me. It distracted them long enough for me to wake up and I wish I could’ve taken the bread with me.